How To Generate Ideas

We've submitted our event proposal for this year's Choose Yer Own Festival, with special thanks to the power of email and Skype because I was back home in Windsor and Vlad was in Calgary for submission deadline. 

Getting that submission thought out was an extension of a conversation we had on a walk back in June.  One of my favourite ways to spend time with my pals is to go for walks at night in and around downtown Calgary.  However, on one specific walk we stumbled upon some steps that led to a dark park.  In the day time this area is great, but the moment evening hits, this area becomes generally overlooked and forgotten.  We wanted to do something about this as part of our submission for the Choose Yer Own Festival.  We also wanted to use LED lights.   

We broadly discussed a series of locations within Calgary and how we could use LED lights to illuminate these forgotten spaces.  So, the brainstorming began.  A couple of things to keep in mind when brainstorming: 1) Don't set limits 2) No idea is ridiculous 3) Don't brainstorm when tired...actually...maybe ignore that last point...  Some of our initial ideas included...

Take an LED light and place it within a concave piece of aluminum foil: the results are surprisingly dramatic.  

This is a diagram Vlad drew of a suspended LED hanging from somewhere.   Also, it has a note about my content insurance which I have to get to my landlord which you can disregard.  We'll tell you a little more about what it means later on.  

An incredible diagram by me.  This is actually a diagram of a city ventilation grate.  With LED lights.  And the diagram previously mentioned above is also of something similar.  

From our discussion and scribbles we were most excited about two ideas:  simulating the presence of fireflies in urban parks and creating constellations in ventilation grates.  Now...to figure out logistics. We decided to choose just one idea for our event submission for Choose Yer Own: LED fireflies.  We're not forgetting ventilation grate constellations, we're just going to get one project organized at a time.  More to come, since we should hear back from the folks at Choose Yer Own shortly!